Colorado
by xGraybackx
Summary: Humbert Humbert's plea for the jury's mercy. But more importantly, his appeal to the late Mrs. Schiller. Lolita Universe.


**Author's Note: **I added new elements so I could submit to my school literary mag. Although I'm sure most of them haven't read Lolita, it was nevertheless fun to dish up. This was a lot of fun to write, but I also like the promptness of the original. Short and sweet is anything but Humbert's style, but it seems fitting somehow. Nabokov's style is tricky to emulate, and it is easier to see the cracks of my farce the longer I go on.

Disclaimer: Lolita is owned by Vladimir Nabokov. My references are from Emma Lazarus and Edgar Allen Poe.

* * *

**Colorado**

_Will Brown Dolores,_

_Colorado._

That vulgar jibe kills me. Sun-kissed Lolita tanning under a villainous sun, her brunette locks stained black with an ape's dripping sweat. What I wouldn't give to be that terrible thespian's understudy. I would seize that role and play her like a fiddle. (Hey Diddle Diddle, shall we make like the dish and the spoon?

And no, I don't play second).

How many months has it been, my sweet? Since I held you in my arms and you quaked beneath me like a hungry jackal? How many weeks has it been? Those days that melted into the night, and oozed long hours, pondering minutes, chewing seconds. Like a cur my enraged tooth ripped many a jagged hole in my mouth. And like a deviant, I torturously wished for my bloody lips to paint your own.

I realize a madman's ramblings are the last of which you want to hear. And I am the last of whom you want to hear them from. Your mother is dead, Lolita. You think I murdered her in cold blood. You had accused me of it during that explosive night in Beardsley. So perhaps you thought me mad all along. But mark my words, darling. I would frighten you with the way I am now. _Dearest God,_ I would frighten you!

Ladies and Gentlemen: I do not enjoy the way I am. I do not enjoy stealing the innocence of children, though by my eyes only. Please believe me, jury. Lolita was already a soiled, spoilt princess by the time I laid my beastly hands upon her. It is true. Do not turn your gaze from these vile pages! Do not strike your condemning cobra glare unto my naked soul. I have already been judged enough…by my -

Love,

Dolly Haze.

Love,

Holly Daze.

(I shall begin, dear Lolita - it is only proper).

These melanc-holy days. Ripped from my sweetheart; betrayed by my sweet tart. She trampled my _p'oar h'arte. _And as I snarl and I whine - that saucy Charlotte and Charlatan, Harlot and Harlequin, how could she, how dare she – I am living a lie. The rest is silence.

Oh, do you see what you do to me, my nymphetic mistress?! I am crying and dying. I am that sucker in the films you detest, me and my bumbling womanly tears not fit for the screen, and most certainly not fit for the Dream. (Whose dream is it? Yours, mine, or _theirs_?)

I implore you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury! Answer me this: when and where and why and _how_ did we go wrong?!

…

No guess, nothing?

Then, I suppose this is how it is.

Whatever land – for they move so much quicker across the earth than this deathtrap will allow - that drifted past our boat has already departed. There is no destination in sight for the likes of ours; wretched refuse still so craftily molded. I dare say, if there ever was such a land to invite the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses, onto their teeming shore, bright with sea-washed, sunset gates, we did indeed miss the platform.

Ha, indeed.

We have set sail on a sinking ship, my darling. I do not pretend to be ignorant as to why. The foundation had already been set in lies, and thatched in deceit. Recognizing this, I took pains to nail the boards with desire, and yet you desired to undo them with pain. Before I knew it, we were both gripping an unwieldy iron hammer, warm palms interlacing, and had smashed the hull to weeping fragments. You, my Cheshire Cat, leapt into my arms a blushing bride, and urged me to row the trow with my toes.

I did try, love.

But to no avail, it seems. In no time at all, we had sunken. Not hard, but steady and fast. I still remember that hyena-like yip that tore through your throat as we went under. Never before had I heard such a jocular sound rip from your candy-sweet lips.

You left bubbles in your wake.

Fossilized remnants fade unless preserved (we fumbled and we jumbled and we tumbled, so carelessly, to the bed, and – my word - we now emerge, perversed) and like dust scattering to the four winds, they left no trace – _no testimony_ – to our sordid assorted attempts at mock-love.

(Zero, my lovely love, _match point_).

By then, I was choked to tears. Saline water returning to the sea, my head too dipped beneath the riptides and sought to join you.

We had found common ground at last, I think. (In water, no less. Curse you, irony!)

Our watery grave – a dungeon, a prison, a _sepulcher by the sea, _whatever you feel fit to call it – is what shall bind us together. This coffin molded with mold shall rot, and transform itself into a golden kingdom, festering with diseased life.

I do not pretend, darling.

No, your bubbly bubble-laden laugh forever bubbles in my ears…

…jarring, blustering, buffeting, squally, strident, discordant, jangling (I would croon a thousand songs into your soul, if you would only ask me).

Farewell, my Annabel. You will not kiss and tell? Fear not, _I will._

Would you have had ever guessed that you would become a masterpiece? No, my young Hollywood starlet, perhaps not. So swept up in your cue on stage… Tell me, did the quill you pick up properly cross your T's and dot your I's? Perhaps it fell impotent.

Ah, but in death, there is life! Have I painted your canvas black, Dahlia?

Little Annie Lee, how many times will you be reborn before you are satisfied? How many good men will you fell with your fatal enchantment until your appetite is tamed? (I can be your Daddy Warbucks - _and so much more_). I knew you once, a long time ago. I knew you twice. I will know you thrice. Your unborn babe - will it be a daughter, I wonder? (Get your gun, Ms. Oakley, and put a bullet through your _bon vivant's _wandering eye).How you smother me. Smother. Everwhere, in every life. But, no. You are not the Dalai Lama, despite the mysticism you hold over me. Dolly Lama rings a truer note.

I shall never know a lovelier maiden such as you. (Or any at all, as those pigs say they will deny me). I thank you for gracing me your much appreciated company, and I do hope you and your incidental Dick will be a happy pair.

My darling and my daughter, my Dolorous Delight, I sanctify you my queen. Although we shall never pierce so thickly past the skin, this intimacy wears me down that I know not of true intimacy. Cyranose knew well that his Roxane had much faith in Christian, it – _he_ was good and gracious. Lend me thy needle and thread, I shall sew my love unto my lips and press them to this flap here – yes, on the sticky – and hope against all odds they will be delivered.

Our lives once intersected, so frail a moment I blinked and lost sight of you. Will you believe me when I say I need you? My lungs starve for air, and I starve for you. My end, I fear, is approaching… May angels guide you where I lay, _perpétuelle de l'éternité._

Love,

Father Hum.


End file.
